. A naturalist's wanderings in the Eastern archipelago; a narrative of travel and exploration from 1878 to 1883. nsely crowded, yielded largecrops of a very superior kind of fruit; above these cultivatedfields ran a broad belt of low forest consisting of a shrubbery ofFluggea microcarpa and the usual broad-leaved scitamineousplants, in whose damp shade balsams and white-flowered Ges-neracese and hairy-leaved Begonias flourished. About 4000 feetbegan the virgin forest, which for 2000 feet upwards displayedunrivalled luxuriance, under which grew a tangled mass ofshrubs and thorny climbers. Crash
. A naturalist's wanderings in the Eastern archipelago; a narrative of travel and exploration from 1878 to 1883. nsely crowded, yielded largecrops of a very superior kind of fruit; above these cultivatedfields ran a broad belt of low forest consisting of a shrubbery ofFluggea microcarpa and the usual broad-leaved scitamineousplants, in whose damp shade balsams and white-flowered Ges-neracese and hairy-leaved Begonias flourished. About 4000 feetbegan the virgin forest, which for 2000 feet upwards displayedunrivalled luxuriance, under which grew a tangled mass ofshrubs and thorny climbers. Crashing through these, I oneday nearly trampled on a fine new species of that curiousfamily, the Rafflesiacese; it smelt powerfully of putrid flesh,and was infested with a crowd of flies, which followed me allthe way as I carried it home, and was besides overrun withants, notwithstanding the long hairs which protected its the deep shade at this elevation few flowers except fromthe climbers and epiphytes on the trees, such as many speciesof Melastoma oftener more rich in colour of fruit than of flower,. IN SUMATRA. 207 scarlet Mschynanihes, and occasionally a gorgeous varied forms and colours of the foliage, however, greatlyrelieved the general want of flowers. From the broad leavesof the Ginger family and the tangled thickets of palms, tothe graceful fronds of Alsophila, Cyathea and creeping Bavallia,to the pandans and aroids which embrace the tree trunks andclothe the leafless coils of the lianes, there is a perpetual andrefreshing variety. Here I found a curious species of Ficus,whose long stem-branches penetrated underground, where thefigs were produced with their orifices only above the surface. Nothing could be finer than many of the crowns of flowersof the giant trees that I was constantly felling. One of these,a species of Sty rax (S. suhpanicidatum), was a mass of blossomwhich scented the region of the mountain for days after I felledit, and often be
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1800, bookdecade1880, booksubjectnaturalhistory, booky
